The results mean G.M.’s hourly workers in the United States will receive profit-sharing checks next month of up to $7,000, a record.

G.M. said it earned a quarterly profit of $472 million, or 28 cents a share, down from $510 million, or 31 cents a share, a year ago. It was the eighth consecutive quarterly profit for the carmaker, which cleansed much of its debt in bankruptcy two years ago, but also the smallest during that stretch.

For all of 2011, G.M. earned $7.6 billion, nearly all of it from North America. That was 62 percent higher than the $4.7 billion it earned a year ago and nominally more than G.M.’s previous record of $6.7 billion in 1997 (in today’s dollars, the 1997 profit would be about $9.4 billion).

G.M.’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, called the year “another step in the right direction” but said the performance in Europe was not acceptable.

“Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do in some areas and we’re taking the necessary corrective actions to get the ball over the goal line,” Mr. Akerson said in a conference call with analysts and reporters.

Excluding one-time items like debt reduction and an investment in its former financing arm, Ally Financial, G.M. earned 39 cents a share in the fourth quarter, 2 cents below analysts’ expectations. Still, shares rose nearly 9 percent, to close at $27.17 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

G.M. earned $7.2 billion in North America in 2011, 26 percent higher than the previous year. Under a formula in the United Automobile Workers union’s new contract with G.M., 47,500 hourly workers are eligible to receive up to $7,000 in profit-sharing as a result. G.M. paid workers $4,300 a year ago and before that had paid out more than $1,000 only once, in 1999, when the checks were $1,775 each.

In contrast, the company lost $747 million in Europe, where it is speeding up a restructuring of its Opel brand. It lost $562 million in Europe during the fourth quarter alone, as economic conditions there deteriorated.

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Shoppers examined a new Cruze at a Chevrolet dealership in Ann Arbor, Mich., last October.Credit
Rebecca Cook/Reuters

G.M.’s continuing restructuring plan for Europe, where it has been losing money every year for more than a decade, “was built around a more robust European economy than we face today,” G.M.’s chief financial officer, Daniel Ammann, said.

Mr. Ammann said G.M. would move “rapidly and decisively” to reduce its break-even point in Europe and not simply wait for the economy to improve.

“G.M.E. has to become profitable even in a challenging economic environment,” he said. “Just like in the United States a couple years ago, we will need to show improvement in both revenue and cost to be successful.”

Mr. Ammann declined to reveal specific actions that G.M. would take in Europe, like plant closings, but said the company was “in discussions with all of our stakeholders to optimize the business.” He said the auto industry had too much production capacity in Europe, noting only that G.M. was in the same position as its rivals there.

The company also lost money — $225 million in the fourth quarter and $122 million on the year — in South America, a reversal from a year ago, when that region generated a profit of $818 million.

Globally, fourth-quarter revenue rose 3 percent to $38 billion. G.M. said it expected to increase its top-line revenue in 2012 as demand for vehicles improves in the United States and elsewhere around the world. Analysts said they expected North America to continue driving G.M.’s profits higher as the company works to increase its margins.

“G.M.’s new focus on balancing traditional cost controls with improved product quality is beginning to pay dividends in North America,” Brian A. Johnson, an analyst with Barclays Capital, wrote in a report Thursday.

G.M. said its United States pensions ended the year underfunded by $13.3 billion, or 12 percent. A year ago, they were underfunded by $11.5 billion, or 11 percent. On Wednesday, G.M. said it would freeze pension contributions for salaried employees, instead switching them to a 401(k)-type plan to eliminate the risk of a future shortfall.

The pension gap is among the factors hindering the value of G.M.’s stock, analysts say. Shares of G.M. are worth about one-quarter less than the price set in an initial public offering in November 2010, when the federal government sold most of the 60 percent stake it received in G.M. after shepherding the company through bankruptcy.

The government still owns 26 percent of G.M., but the Obama administration has delayed plans to sell those shares in the hopes of recovering a larger percentage of its investment as the share price increases.

A version of this article appears in print on February 17, 2012, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: G.M.’s Annual Profit Rises 62%, but Quarterly Earnings Fall. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe